Top Stories 2017: Greenport woman killed in town’s first murder in over 20 years

A Greenport woman was found strangled in her Second Street home the night of July 10.

The next day, police said, Jaime DeLeon-Tino, 23, was arrested on Osborn Avenue in Riverhead. He was charged with second-degree murder in the death of 27-year-old Michelle Schiavoni. Mr. DeLeon-Tino, who was found to be in the United States illegally from El Salvador, pleaded not guilty to the felony charge before Suffolk County Justice Richard Ambro.

According to assistant district attorney Elizabeth Creighton, Mr. DeLeon-Tino said in a statement that he placed his hands around Ms. Schiavoni’s neck until she was dead.

He also said he was going to leave the state, and possibly the country, and was carrying a “large sum” of money, Ms. Creighton said in court July 20.

Mr. DeLeon-Tino, was found to have entered the country illegally in December 2013 and was subsequently removed, according to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesperson. It’s unknown when and where he re-entered the United States.

Local officials pointed to the incident as the first murder in town since the unsolved killing of Gladys Randall, a 69-year-old Greenport woman, in her apartment in 1993.

Congressman Lee Zeldin (R-Shirley) called for stiffer penalties for undocumented immigrants who return to the United States after deportation, citing the murder as a reason to pass Kate’s Law, a measure that would impose a maximum of two years in prison for those who return illegally after being deported.